Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

Top 10 Saturday Morning Gaming Cartoons

Top 10 Saturday Morning Gaming Cartoons

Video game cartoons: there are a ton of them, and most of them are form a much darker time in human history. This was back when IP value was still becoming a thing, and companies were much more quick to sell rights to whoever was interested. Nowadays, it takes a lot more time, scrutiny, and assuring rabid nerds their precious franchises will remain with their integrities as intact as possible. But in the 80’s and 90’s, well, there was also much less to go on and much more room for creative freedom, from people who didn’t care as much about video game lore as you might today.

So let’s take a look back at some of the wackiest, wildest cartoons that were involved with video games (in most cases directly based on them), and wonder how any of these brands survived to today.

Donkey Kong Country

Donkey Kong Country

Places like France and Canada were early sources of 3D animation, and one of the very first cartoon shows to be fully 3D animated with motion capture was the Nelvana-produced Donkey Kong Country . This is one of the single most bizarre-looking TV shows, video games or otherwise. While most known for its hilarious facial expressions, the English version of the show had some pretty alright singing segments thanks to the dude who provided Donkey Kong’s singing voice, Sterling Jarvis, being actually pretty talented.

Double Dragon

Double Dragon

Ok, I don’t actually remember much about the Double Dragon cartoon. But I do remember watching it, despite barely knowing what Double Dragon even was at the time. It had very little in common with the games of course, which were mostly just about punching dudes in a vaguely apocalyptic city. In the show, Billy and Jimmy Lee had actual dragon powers and transformed into helmet-wearing versions of themselves with laser powers or something. Gotta try to sell toys at all costs.

Earthworm Jim

Earthworm Jim

This one was actually good! Earthworm Jim took an already bizarre video game and brought things to an even higher level of weird, with all kinds of strange characters that were merely wacky sprites in the game brought to life as extremely as possible. Unfortunately as great as the show was the Earthworm Jim brand was never really able to escape the 90’s, with further games plummeting in quality and the creator of the character eventually deciding to be a miserable kook on Twitter. Oh well!

Super Mario Bros. Super Show

Super Mario Bros. Super Show

You may be looking at this image and wondering why it isn’t a cartoon. You see, the Super Mario Bros. Super Show was something special. For the most part, it was a cartoon that introduced Mario and Luigi’s ridiculous New York accents that came uncomfortably close to being canon for a while, but the episodes often had live-action interstitials starring Captain Lou Albano as Mario. The connection to the world of wrestling would lead to various cameos like Sgt. Slaughter and of course Rowdy Roddy Piper (and even tangentially, Cindi Lauper). The Mario cartoon series would have multiple name changes and sequels, but the wrestling cameos gave the original that extra something it needed to stand out.

Mega Man

Mega Man

The Mega Man cartoon took a very silly, cartoon-y, and very Astro Boy- inspired game and turned it into the most American-ass 90’s action cartoon ever. All the characters were uncomfortably muscular and detailed, and the show would even attempt to establish its own somewhat serious, long-term canon. We even eventually saw Mega Man X make an appearance. To give credit where credit is due, Mega Man was certainly one of the more ambitious efforts on the list.

Pac-Man

Pac-Man

Pac-Man Fever is a cultural phenomenon that no video game has arguably matched yet, and the brand was so hot in the 80s’ that even legendary(ish) animation studio Hanna-Barbera got in on the action. Molding Pac-Man into the Hanna-Barbera formula had… interesting results, although it wasn’t a huge stretch to to the already-establised family dynamic. But most of us know the series by its ludicrous Christmas special, Christmas Comes to Pac-Land , which aired every year for decades until Cartoon Network finally banished it to the DVD market.

Reboot

Reboot

I couldn’t make this list without giving a shout-out to Reboot . This was another Canadian 3D animation effort, but ended up being much more successful than Donkey Konog Country . Reboot has a really fascinating history, going form kind of a wacky kid’s show based on computers, to eventually going more indie and establishing a much darker tone and years-long continuity. The show famously utilized a time skip to great effect, and infamously ended on cliffhanger after cliffhanger. Unfortunately, the IP was suspended in development hell for years, and ended up in a recent Netflix production we won’t talk any more about. But definitely check out the original if the idea of a long-running show inspired by 90s gaming and computer culture sounds interesting.

Street Fighter

Street Fighter

Street Fighter II was another big cultural phenomenon, and Capcom responded to the game’s success by licensing the everloving crap out of it. While Street Fighter products today are generally much higher quality, the brand wasn’t to lucky in the 90’s. From the infamous (ly great) Jean-Claude Van Damme movie to some seriously horrid comic books, the American TV show was somewhere in the middle. Featuring some real silly moments, the most famous of which being Bison yelling at some “delicious” security camera footage, the show will never be forgotten no matter how some may want it to.

The Legend of Zelda

The Legend of Zelda

While the Super Mario Bros. Super Show went on and on, the Legend of Zelda cartoon only lasted for a season. And, well, it’s pretty obvious why. A game that, at the time was an adventure on a grand scale nobody had ever seen the likes of before, the show was about an idiot who yelled “excuuuuuse me, princess” a lot and fought some monsters sometimes. Outside of some dank memes, this show has mostly gone forgotten by anyone who might have cared at one point.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog

In terms of both ambition and success, it’s hard to argue against Sonic the Hedgehog being the most powerful video game to cartoon conversion. There were actually several Sonic cartoons, with two of them doing quite well and being fondly remembered by Sonic fans for some pretty different reasons. The one pictures is The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog , which was mostly about comedy, and Dr. Robotnik’s incredibly boisterous personality. The second was simply called Sonic the Hedgehog , and is responsible for all the “deep lore” about Sonic and friends being freedom fighters battling against a much more threatening Dr. Robotnik who was always trying to stamp out all organic life and turn all the animals into robots. It was oddly serious for a cartoon at the time, and fans ate it up big time.

To top